


The One with the Rumor

by Cassiebobassie



Series: The One with Friends References [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel & Meg Masters Friendship, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel is super awkward, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Friends (TV) - Freeform, High School Memories, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, M/M, Meg hates Dean, Misunderstandings, Post-High School, Rumors, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Dinner, The I Hate Dean Winchester Club, Unrequited Castiel/Meg Masters, based on a friends episode, high school pining, holiday drama, no character crossover, please forgive him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-02 01:30:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12716934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassiebobassie/pseuds/Cassiebobassie
Summary: Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time for friends and family to share happy memories, company, good food, and plenty of pie . . . it's not the time for your boyfriend to invite old high school buddies that hate you and are 90% likely to be demon spawn. Dean thought that Cas understood basic facts like these, but apparently not. So now Dean has 5 hours to get dinner ready, 4 pies to bake, 3 kinds of potatoes to prepare, 2 hands to get it all done with, and 1 horrible enemy that's on her way. He isn't happy about it, and he certainly ain't thankful. Things take a turn from bad to worse when Dean learns that Cas and Meg might have started a rumor about him in high school. When high school history comes to light, it makes Dean question the future he has with Cas? Will Dean have anything to be thankful for when this disaster of a day is over?





	The One with the Rumor

**Author's Note:**

> There is a non-con tag. Read the notes at the end for more info. This is a friends plot line, but it's totally destiel. No friends characters and not focused on humor. Sorry there's no Chandler, guys!

“What do you mean Meg is coming over?”

“I ran into Meg at the grocery store, Dean. And I invited her to dinner. We haven't seen each other since graduation.”

“Meg Masters?” Dean asks, but it comes out mostly as a yell. Cas cannot actually be saying that the Demon Witch of his high school nightmares is going to be in his house in less than five hours? And by his boyfriend’s invitation?

“Yes, Dean,” Cas says, tilting his head, as though he's studying Dean's expression, as if he's confused about what the problem might be. Dean decides to clarify.

“She freaking hates me, man,” he says, bluntly, hoping that Cas will take this news back, admit that he’s in the middle of a really bad joke.

“She doesn’t hate you, Dean,” Cas says lightly instead. “Besides, you haven’t seen each other in over a a decade. I’m sure she’s changed. A lot. I want her to be here, Dean. She was my best friend in high school. My only friend really.”

“I hear you, it’s just—”

Cas interrupts, saying excitedly, “It’s amazing that I ran into her today of all days, Dean.” He turns his back to Dean to finish putting away the groceries and misses Dean’s eye roll.

“Sure, it’s amazing. Meeting old high school buddies in the grocery store is amazing. I hear you. But you aren’t listening to me, Cas.”

“Dean, she’s in town alone.” Cas insists, spinning around.

“If she’s alone, why’s she back at all? I thought she had some big shit life in the city,” Dean says angrily. It didn’t escape his notice that Cas only turned in his direction to plead Meg’s case.

“She does. She did. Apparently, things haven’t been going well, and she moved into her parents home until she can get it sold.”

“Then why doesn’t she spend the day with them?”  
“They’ve passed, Dean. It’s just her empty childhood home.”

“All right, fine,” Dean says, determined not to ruin Cas’s holiday even though his boyfriend seems determined to ruin his.

“But I swear to god, Cas, if she calls you her unicorn one time—” Dean threatens, holding up his finger. “Just one time—I’m going to lose my mind.”

Cas laughs, tosses his empty bags in the closet, and then walks over to Dean and tries to pull him into his arms, but a hug or kiss isn't gonna fix this. Besides, Dean has dinner to cook. The turkey is in, but there is plenty left to do. Especially now that it has to be perfect. For Meg freakin Masters. Dean sighs and tries to go back to cutting up shallots, but he doesn’t have much hope for dinner tonight.

  
An hour later, and Dean still hates this. Meg is ruining his favorite of all holidays. Thanksgiving normally gives him a contact high from all the family, and food, and pie. He spends days getting everything ready and he loves every minute of it. Especially the parts where he gets to bake pecan, pumpkin, apple, and cherry pies and nobody bitches that he's made too much. And he gets to spend a weekend cuddling with Cas and blaming it on a food coma. But now Meg is coming.

Meg Masters. One of the bricks in the wall that kept him away from Cas in high school. Hell, maybe the whole damn wall. After all, he'd been sure for years that Cas and Meg were dating. Cas continues to deny it, even now, insisting that he has always been comfortable with being gay and has never even kissed a girl, but Dean remembers all too well how much Meg despised him in school. He also vividly remembers how close she always was to Cas—emotionally, physically. Even if Cas didn’t love her that way, she definitely loved him.

And, frankly, Dean feels threatened.

Sure, Cas and Dean have been together for a little over four years, ever since they both finished their different college degrees and returned home to Lawrence. After settling back in to town, they and ran into each other in the super market in the most epic re-meet cute there ever was.  
Their hands had touched when they both reached for the last cherry pie, and they got to reminiscing about high school, and they agreed to meet for a beer. After round three at the Roadhouse they both admitted to having crushes on each other in high school. Cas confided that he had pined for Dean since ninth grade and had come to most of Dean’s baseball and football games to cheer him on and to admire him in uniform. Dean admitted to watching Cas whenever he wasn't looking. He also told Cas that even into his first year in college, he was unable to kiss any other person without Cas’s chapped, pink lips flashing through his mind. When Dean finished his confession with, “you have no idea how badly I wanted your lips on mine,” Cas leaned over the table and kissed Dean into silence. They'd been together ever since.  
And pretty much all of Dean’s high school fantasies have come true. That's what Dean tells himself as he tries to calm down and focus on cooking again. After all, Cas is here, in the kitchen with him, finishing up odds and ends for a family dinner. Dean couldn't be happier. He's in love. He's got Cas. He has a great job. Life couldn't be any better…except now Meg is coming into their home for a family holiday. Two months ago, on their anniversary, Cas and Dean's four years felt great. Today though?

Four years feels pretty small…four years was the same amount of time Dean watched Cas being glued to Meg’s hip throughout high school. If Dean had had enough balls to ask Cas out like he wanted to, they might have been together over a decade by now. If only… if only Dean hadn’t been afraid that Meg and Cas were an item anyway.  
And now she was coming here. For Thanksgiving. With his head and gut spinning, cooking sure wasn’t fun, no matter how loud he made the music. This sucks, he thought. Great way to mess up Thanksgiving, Masters. Even the smell of pecan pie wafting out of the oven didn’t cheer him up. Damn, he only made 4 mini-pecan pies: one for him, Cas, Sam, and Jess. He was really excited about those, too. No way was he letting Masters mess that up. A man had to protect his pies.

“Dude,” he said over his shoulder to Cas, “I am not making her an individual pecan pie. They’ve already gone in the oven. And I don’t have time to make another.”

“It’s fine, Dean,” Cas answers with a smile, rinsing off cranberries for the sauce he makes every year. “She can have mine. You know I’m not as dedicated to pie as you are.”

“Yeah, wonder what else you aren’t as dedicated to,” Dean mumbles under his breathe.

“What Dean? I couldn’t hear you.”

Dean leaves the kitchen pretending not to hear. He has a table to set, and Cas isn’t going to dis-invite Meg no matter what he says. Fighting won’t help them here. Cas usually means best, but this isn’t going to end well.

Three hours later, the table looks great. The old oak table is so loaded with food that Dean can’t help but smile, imaging that it will collapse under the weight of his feast. An eighteen-pound bird, a ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, potato salad, stuffing, green beans, corn on the cob, salad, deviled eggs, hot rolls, four different pies, and Castiel's cranberry surprise. Cas’s has decorated the tables with candles and with leaves from their backyard. He and Cas are freaking awesome, and Dean is starting to feel better about meeting Meg as a couple. Today is starting to seem like a good time for him and Cas to set things right, put things the way they should have been back in high school.

A bell ring has him headed to the door, nervous… because Sam always just lets himself in. Here we go, Dean thinks, taking a deep breath.

Dean swings the door open, and there she is. He tries to smile, but he can feel it go sideways into a grimace.

Meg smirks and says, “Hello, Dean. It’s me. You’re favorite.”

“Hi, Meg. Come on in,” he says, as cheerfully as he can manage.

“Dean? Dean? Is someone here?” Cas calls from their bedroom.

“Yeah, Meg’s here.” Dean answers back.

Cas walks out of their room, putting on a tie, getting dolled up the way he does for every family dinner. Dean relaxes for a minute, happy to see Cas and to know about his routine. But his skin crawls as he watches Cas finish dressing himself in front of Meg. They’re smiling widely at each other. Cas has an awed look on his face, and he’s staring at his long, lost friend like she’s the only one in the room. Dean clenches his jaw, determined not to interrupt their “moment” even though it makes him a little sick and a whole lot nervous. When Meg reaches up to straighten Cas’s tie, Dean is 100 percent certain she’s the same evil bitch she always was.

  
Thirty minutes later, Sam and Jess are there, and they are distraction enough that Cas doesn’t only have eyes for Meg. Cas has played host and settled everyone around the table. He’s placed himself between Meg and Dean, and Dean wishes for the first time that the table wasn’t round and cozy, because Meg’s way to close to Cas for Dean’s comfort. But Cas is leaning in to Dean’s side and telling him that everything looks great, so Dean decides to get his head on right and cut up the bird.  
After the turkey and ham are carved and everybody has time to dig in, Dean starts building his traditional and epic whole-lot-to-be thankful-for sandwich: bread, turkey, a little green beans, a little stuffing, another layer of turkey and bread, with an extra piece of gravy soaked bread in the middle. His moist-maker.

“Dean,” Sam says with a laugh, “You’re going to kill yourself with all those carbs.”

Jess giggles and adds, “Plus, aren’t sandwiches for the day after Thanksgiving?”

“Gotta teach her the house rules, Sammy. Chef picks the menu, diner shut his cakehole.”

Jess laughs again, and raises her wine in Dean’s direction.

When he lifts his sandwich to give her a salute back, stuffing and beans tumble out. Everyone laughs, and Dean glares at them. Teasing he says, “I think you pissed off my sandwich.”

“Jerk,” Sam says, smiling.

“Bitch,” Dean returns with a wink.  
  
Meg mutters, “Typical.”

“Excuse me? What?” Dean asks.

“Typical Dean Winchester. King of the Jocks. Does whatever he wants in Dean-land.”

“What crawled up your butt, Meg?” Dean asks.

“Just coming to terms with your new ‘happily ever after’ with Clarence here,” she says using air quotes “After poor, lonely, former-nerd Castiel told me how the guy who ignored him for four years was his one true love…. I laughed. I cried. I puked.”

“What did I ever do to you Meg?”

“Meg, please,” Cas says softly.

“You were the most popular guy in school, and you acted like the rest of us were just extras in your glamorous life. It was gross.”

“Meg,” Sam says, “Seriously, you’re in my brother’s house, eating a meal he made for you. Can’t you just bury the high school stuff for the night?”

“The rest of us?” Dean asks, too confused and too angry at Meg to let this slide, no matter how much Sam and Cas wanna play peacemaker.

“Yeah, the rest of us. We even had club. The I Hate Dean Winchester Club.”

“So you just got together to hate me. Who else was in this club?”

“Me. And Cas.”

“You and Cas? Nobody else?”

“That’s not enough Dean? Like I said. Typical! You want to be popular even in the Most Despised category.”

Dean shakes his head at Meg and turns away. When his eyes fall on Cas he reads anxiety and guilt on his face, and a fair bit of anger directed at Meg. So Meg must be telling the truth. He can read the truth and the shame in Cas’s eyes. Dean’s chest tightens, and his appetite plummets. He sets his knife and fork down and his eyes never leave Cas’s. The eyes that haunted him since he was fifteen look scared, but he’s too angry to feel pity or forgiveness, not yet. “We’ve been dating for four years, Cas. We’re shopping around for a freaking house. And you never mentioned anything about an I-hate-Dean Club. What were you waiting for, Cas, marriage?”

“You might marry this guy, Castiel?” Meg asked sounding shocked and upset.

“Guys, calm down,” Sam tried again, but no one was listening. Even Jess seem interested in the argument, leaning forward to catch the next bit.

“We had a pact, Clarence,” Meg snapped.

Cas gnawed on his lip and squeezed his eyes closed, “We were in high school. It’s not like it’s binding forever.”

“Then why’d it have the word eternity in it?” she asked.

“So you promised Meg you would hate me forever, Cas? Sure didn’t seem to hate me too much last night when you were lubing my ass.”

“Jeez, Dean. Come on!” Sam said, looking askance at Jess, clearly hoping she wasn’t scandalized.

Meg, for her part, clearly found Dean’s comment hilarious. Her face was red, laughter bubbling up around her wild grin.

“Wait. Clarence. Let me get this straight,” she said, turning Cas toward her and grabbing his shoulders. “You, a tax accountant, king of the nerds, make Dean your bitch every night? You bend over the King of the Jocks and f—”

“Oh my God! Meg! Stop!” Cas yelled, placing a hand over her mouth.

Dean wanted to be happy that Cas was trying to get Meg under control, but seeing him touch her was too upsetting. They almost looked like they were playing. Any minute they’d be wrestling and laughing like they always did in high school. Dean had had enough.

“This has been great, Cas, Meg, Sammy, Jess,” Dean mumbled, tossing his linen napkin down—the napkins he only got out of the closet for fancy damned holidays. “Let’s not do this again,” he said, starting to clean up the table. Keeping his eyes down and averted, Dean saw that everyone's plates were still full. But he doesn’t give a shit. He’s done eating. He's done with this entire freaking day.

“Dean, stop,” Cas said urgently, reaching out to put a hand on Dean’s arm. “Don't destroy the dinner you've worked so hard to prepare. It's wonderful. Don't ruin it over this. It's just a misunderstanding. I can explain.”

“Nothing to explain, Cas. Not exactly surprised.” Dean adds with a laugh, lugging dishes over to the sink, “You know, I always suspected I wasn’t good enough for you. I just never knew you actually hated me.”

“Dean, I have never hated you,” Cas insisted. “That… that club was a long time ago, and, yes, my feelings have changed a little since since high school. But they’ve deepened. I loved you. Even then. But you never seemed to notice me. It was upsetting. I was young. I didn’t handle it well.”

Cas walks over to Dean and rubs his wide palms over Dean’s back and sides, tugging at him, trying to get him to turn around.

Dean spins, and even though Cas clearly wants to embrace him he keeps his body leaned away. “So what, you guys would just get together and say mean things about me?” Dean asks, crossing his arms and making sure Cas is kept at a distance.

“Oh we did more than that.” Meg begins to say with a smirk. “We started a rumor.”

“Meg! Stop.”

“No, Meg. Go on. What rumor?”

“We told everyone you liked to wear women’s underwear. A pair of blue silk panties to be precise. With lace and bows. All that cute shit.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me! No wonder Rhonda Hurley … Fuck, Cas. I cannot believe this.” Dean walks away, his body forcing Cas back. He shakes his head, and rubs at his lips, his neck, the back of his hair. His skin is crawling. It can’t be that Cas and Meg were responsible for . . . No . . . It can’t be.

“Dean, I’m so sorry.”

“How many people knew? How far did this rumor get?”

“I heard it, too, Dean,” Sam says quietly.

“Sammy, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was afraid to talk to you about it. I suspected you liked Cas, too, but whenever I brought it up, you bit my head off. I didn’t want to upset you by bringing up one of your kinks.”

“Dammit! It’s not my kink!” Dean screams, more upset than he wants to be. “But it makes sense now. What Alastair said to me. What he did,” he mutters, upset, and determined to find Baby’s keys and get the hell out of his apartment.

“What are you talking about, Dean?” Sam asks, his eyebrows bent and upset.

“Dean?” Cas asks quiet and worried. But Dean can’t look at him, not now. Especially when he hears Jess whisper, “Whose Alistair?”

Dean slams the door behind himself and half-walks-half-jogs to his car. He hears the door open and close behind him and hopes it’s not Cas.

“Dean!” Cas yells. “Dean, please. Stop.”

Dean quits walking, closes his eyes, and waits. Cas will come the rest of the way. He knows that. He also knows he can’t walk away from Cas. He could shut Sammy out, but Cas knows all his nooks and crannies, knows him down to his soul. He can’t shut him out. Even when he wants to. And he really wants to. He’s never told anybody about Alistair, and he would like to keep it that way.

“Dean, what did you mean? What did Alistair do to you?”

“You know the guy, Cas. What the fuck do you think he did?”

“You were definitely too big and too strong for his normal treatment, trapping you in a locker or dunking you in a toilet bowl. Did his friends help him to beat you? Bully you?”

“Sure, Cas. Good old beat down. You guessed it.”

Cas squints at him, his forehead deeply creased. “That is not the truth, Dean. If you don’t want to tell me, or cannot, I understand. But, please, Dean, no lies between us.”

“What does it matter, Cas? It’s over. Dude is probably dead in some ditch somewhere.”

“It must matter, Dean, to you. If it is hard to even discuss. Did he hurt you, Dean? Can you tell me? Can you trust me?”

“Cas.”

Cas circles his strong arms around Dean’s torso and pulls them tightly together. “I’m here, Dean,” he says in a soft purr against Dean’s neck.

Dean shivers and hugs him back before pulling away. He walks toward Baby and leans on her hood. He can’t be vulnerable now.

“I guess Alistair heard the rumor, and liked the news. Apparently, the scary fucker decided I was his type. One night, after a football, I was the last guy in the locker room. I had to have some PT and an ice bath first and the other guys had gone home. Anyway, I’m getting dressed, grabbing my stuff. I’m almost ready to go, and Alistair walks out of a dark corner like some kind of nightmare and makes this disappointed noise. He says something about how he’s upset that I don’t have my cock ready for him in a pair of cute panties or some shit. When I tell him to fuck off, he snaps. Tells me I shouldn’t use such sexy lips to say such dirty things. Fucker presses me up against the lockers and, well, things weren’t great, Cas.”

“Did you rape you, Dean?”

“No!” Dean yells.

“Ok, Dean. I’m sorry. But if he touched you then—“

“I don’t want to talk about good touch bad touch all right?” Dean snaps. "Sure, what happened next was 50 shades of fucked up, but I'm over it. I’m not scarred and traumatized. I’m pissed. The man I wanna marry and his best friend are bonding over my dinner table.

“Marry?” Cas, asks and his face registers surprise and joy with a wide smile and wet eyes.

“Yeah, marry, Cas. You think I shop for houses with somebody I don’t want to live with forever?”

“I want to live with you forever, too, Dean.” Cas says, reaching out toward him.

“Do you, Cas? I thought you had another eternal promise on the table.”

“Dean, I never promised to hate you forever.”

“Meg says you did.”

“Don’t you understand? I was so frustrated. You were so beautiful, so unattainable. And it was a fantasy of mine. To see you like that. I shared it with Meg one day and then it just got out of hand.”

“You wanted to see me like what Cas?”

“In panties."

"I’m sorry that Meg and I are responsible for putting you in a situation like that." After Dean refuses his embrace again, Cas settles for leaning against Baby, warm along Dean’s side. “God, Dean. I used to stare at you and count your freckles. I could have watched you all day. Some days I feel like watching you was all I ever did. And I’m sorry that I told Meg one of my fantasies. I am so thankful you’re in my life, Dean Winchester. So thankful that we both moved back here. That you chose me. Please forgive me.” He reaches out his hand to Dean, and Dean lets him link their fingers together.  
“I was young and foolish and so in love with you, I didn’t know how to handle it, Dean.” When Cas uses their joined hands to pull Dean toward him, bringing their faces close, Dean lets the space between them dwindle to nothing.  
“I know that isn’t an excuse. But I regret the club and the rumor. I regret so much of what I did in high school. I should have talked to you then. Asked you out. Told you how much I enjoyed seeing you every day. I've regretted saying nothing to you for years. But today, I'm so sorry that something I said about you really hurt you.”

“It’s fine, Cas. I just wanna forget about this. Hell, maybe we’ll just skip Thanksgiving the next few years until I’m over the scarring from how terrible this day went,” Dean says, trying for humor.

“No, Dean. Thanksgiving is important to you, to our family. And I have so much to be thankful for.”

“Alright, Cas,” Dean says, giving in. “We’ll have turkey day next year. But no Meg dammit.”

“In a few minutes, I’ll be telling her to leave our home. She will not step foot through our door again if you don’t wish it. And if she can’t learn to love you at least half as much as I do, she won’t have a place in my life at all.”

“I don’t see it happening, man. We have a case of mutual hate.”

“My life won’t be poorer without her in it, Dean. I have you, don’t I?”

“You can’t get rid me, dude. I’d chase ya down. I’d stalk ya.”

Cas laughs and leans in for a kiss, and Dean opens his arms and lets it happen.

They kiss and kiss and Dean’s tension drains away. Cas’s mouth is hot on his, and his arms are tight around his torso. When he reaches to grab Dean’s ass, Dean tightens his fingers in Cas’s hair and is half way into planning how to end this night with a bang when Cas’s pulls back and says “Dean, I have something else to confess to you.”

“Can it wait for another day, man? I've had enough truths for one night.”

Cas shakes his head no.

“Fine,” Dean says with a sigh.

“When we met again… after moving back from college. It wasn't an accident. I followed you.”

“What are you talking about, dude?”

“First, I saw you were at the record store.”

“What?”

“September the 18th. The day after I moved back. I saw you at the record store.”

“Right,” Dean says haltingly. Recalling old memories. “I was probably picking up an order. I ordered a bunch of old albums when I got back, I—”

“You were buying Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. I know, Dean, I was there.”

Dean shakes his head, confused.

“Actually,” Cas continues “I’d been back in town for less than 24 hours. When I woke up I was… frustrated. Emotionally. Sexually.” He shook his head and half-smiled at the memory. “I’d had a wet dream. At twenty three. One of the same horrible wet dreams that had plagued me throughout ninth grade. My first wet dream in years, Dean. And, as always, you were the star. Being back in town made me desperate for you again. But I didn’t know where you were. Didn’t know that you’d moved back, too. So I went to the record store because you always spent time there in high school. And I walked the old stacks and spent half an hour wishing you'd walk though the door. And suddenly, there you were.” Cas squeezes Dean’s hands, “My heart was racing. I couldn't say anything. Your appearance felt miraculous. So I just watched you buy your album and leave. After the record store—”

“I probably headed to Central Perk—”

“That's right. You walked from the record store to the cafe across the street. You helped an elderly woman cross the road.” He placed a kiss under Dean’s jaw, near his ear, with a whispered, “ So sweet, Dean.” He returned to staring into Dean’s eyes again, sincere and serious. “Next, you got a coffee to go. And then—“

“I got in Baby,” Dean said in an awed whisper, starting to remember this trip. He’d only been back in town for a weeks himself, and one day he’d helped a woman cross the street. Turned out she was one of the librarians that used to love Sammy and give him treats and extra book check-outs.

“You got in Baby, the car I still remembered from high school, and I rushed to my beat up Continental and watched as you turned down main. I caught up with you at the next light. I followed you to the grocery store.”

“Cas?”

“I know, Dean. But I couldn’t just let you go. Not after I’d pined for you for years. Not after you showed back up in my life.”

“What did you then?”

“You say you would stalk me as a joke, but in a way that’s what I did.”

“In a way? You didn’t just think of saying hi?”

“I was trying to get the courage to reintroduce myself, Dean. I was looking for an opening. You turned into the grocery store, and I followed you inside, and I stood back as you went from from aisle to aisle. I kept waiting for words to spring to my lips. But no words came. It was like being back in high school again. You were as untouchable, as unattainable as you always had been. Then it occurred to me that you'd end up in the bakery section, and that you'd want a pie.”

“How the hell did you predict I'd want pie, Cas?” Dean asked, frustrated, torn between hope and disbelief.

“You've always liked Pie, Dean. You see, I watched you a lot in high school, too.”

Dean put his hands on Cas’s face, cupping his jaw. "You know this isn't stalking. This is you being a shy, awkward little dude." He pulled him in closer and nodded his head, letting him know it was ok to go on.

“Anyway, I waited and waited and when you walked up to the pies, you hadn't seen me at all, and I still couldn't manage a single syllable. I just wanted to say, ‘Hello, Dean,’ but I couldn't. So when you reached for the pie, I reached out for you”

“I was so happy to see you again, Cas.”

“The grin that lit up your face when you saw me… you have no idea what it did to me. To see you look at me like that, Dean. Then you gave me an awkward hug over the deserts and from that point on I was determined not to let go of you again. Not if I could help it.”

“I’m the kind of guy that chooses to go down swinging. We’ll keep fighting for us, Cas. We both will. We’ll be all right.”

“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m sorry about the rumor. About the club. About inviting Meg and ignoring what you suspected was going to happen.”

“You’ve made up for it, Cas. You love me enough it’s easy to forgive the stupid stuff. Plus, you’re kinda hot.”

Cas tilted his face up for another kiss that half laugh and half tongue. As they laughed together, Cas and Dean stared into each other’s eyes and everything felt right in the world . . . until Cas’s eyes shifted.

“Assbutt!”

Dean turned, trying to follow his gaze and saw Meg in the window of the front room, waving, and holding . . . Holy fuck. Was that a pair of blue panties?

“I’m going to kill her.”

“Cas, if you manage to get that little demon out of my house and on the road in less than five minutes, I’ll wear the damn panties.”

“Dean, I can’t chase her out of the house with an erection. Don’t tempt me,” Cas said, half joking.

“I’m not tempting you, Cas. I’m telling you. You ever want to see me in panties. I want her gone. You got four minutes.”

Three minutes later, a very upset Meg was driving away, cursing Castiel.

Dean hollered after her, “Don’t blame, Cas. Blame my perky nipples.”

“Well, I think that’s the last we’ll see of her,” Sam said, watching her drive away. “What a night, huh, Dean?”

“This night hasn’t gotten started yet,” Dean said. “Apparently, Cas wants to me to perform sexual gymnastics while wearing women’s underwear.”

Jess laughed coming out of the house with Cas following in her wake. He was holding a bag of ice over his eye.

“Dean, I have no such expectations. My forcing her to leave was not a flirtation.”

“Dude, a promise is promise.”

“Well, after she punched him, she did throw the panties in his face. I think they’re on the living room floor.”

“This is epic. She tried to kill the last unicorn,” Dean said.

Cas giggled at that and shook his head. “My people skills are rusty I guess. I didn’t see any of this happening. I am sorry, Dean.”

“Stop apologizing, Cas.”

“But I want to make it up to you, Dean.”

“No problem. Here’s what we’re gonna do.” Dean points to Sammy, “You and Jess are going back inside. You’re gonna load up some tupperware full of food so that you can eat without cooking for a couple days.” Shifting to point a finger at Cas, Dean says, “You, you’re gonna serve some pie. And I’m gonna enjoy it while these two clean up the Thanksgiving disaster. Then you can finish making it up to me in the bedroom. This might—might—I say include some panties.”

“Dean, you’re ridiculous,” Sam says. “But we love you anyway.”

“I think I’m adorable,” Dean replies.

“You are adorable. You make me very happy, Dean,” Cas said, moving to his side.

“See, plenty to be thankful for.” And of all things that had been said that night, Dean knew those words were the most true. 

What Dean couldn't know--because it was a secret--and not a rumor, was that Cas planned to propose tonight. As Cas followed Dean back inside, he ran his fingers over the felt box in his pocket and wondered if Meg had ruined not only Thanksgiving but his proposal. He'd wanted her here so that she could see that after years of listening to him pining for Dean that they were really happy with each other. Seeing her at the store today, it had felt destined. He'd read things all wrong, and he'd wanted so badly for this day to be perfect for Dean. When Dean placed a quick peck on his lips and then said, "Focus, Cas. I spell love P-I-E, so get to makin' me a plate of the stuff," Cas smiled. He decided to follow Dean's advice on how to say I love you and hide the ring in a slice of cherry pie.

 Next year, if things went as planned, they'd be spending their first Thanksgiving as a married couple in their own home, and they'd be without rumors, without Meg, and without drama. Next year, Thanksgiving would be perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> The rape/non-con tag. In this story, Dean is sexually harassed and touched briefly in a sexual manner without consent by a character in his past. The description of the event is not explicit and the details are only implied. I hope that helps you decide if this story will be a safe read for you. 
> 
> I hope everyone likes the story and (if you're a friends fan) that you enjoyed the plot and the references. This turned out more angsty and intense than I originally planned. I guess sometimes family holidays can turn out like that. I wonder, should I have written the proposal scene?
> 
> Also: I'm planning all holiday themed stuff for the next several posts.


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